The British Museum’s major
summer exhibition explores the spiritual and artistic
significance of Christian relics and reliquaries in
medieval Europe. Featuring some of the finest sacred
treasures of the medieval age, Treasures of Heaven:
saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe will
give visitors the opportunity to see objects from more
than forty institutions, many of which have not been
seen in the UK before, brought together for the first
time.

The exhibition will
largely draw on the pre-eminent collections of the
British Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio,
and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Rare loans
from the Vatican, including from the private chapel
of the popes, the Sancta Sanctorum, as well as from
lesser-known European church treasuries will also be
on display. A variety of objects such as
manuscripts, prints and pilgrim badges will be
exhibited alongside the relics and reliquaries
themselves, adding depth and context to the
exhibition’s examination of this critical aspect of
European history.

The exhibition will
trace the development of reliquaries from simple
containers housing human remains, to objects of
enormous ritual importance and artistic
significance. Whilst the majority of objects date
from between approximately 1000–1500 AD some of the
earliest pieces include a late Roman sarcophagus
dating from between 250–350 AD. Sacred items related
to Christ or the saints were first used during the
early medieval period as a focus for prayer and
veneration by Christians throughout Europe. Relics
were usually human body parts, or material items
sanctified through their contact with holy persons
or places. This exhibition will feature a very broad
range of the kinds of relics which were venerated,
including three thorns thought to be from the Crown
of Thorns, the breast milk of the Virgin Mary, and
the Mandylion of Edessa; one of the earliest known
likenesses of Jesus.

The beauty of a
reliquary was intended to reflect the spiritual
value of what it contained, and so reliquaries were
made of the highest quality, often crafted in
precious metals by extremely skilled goldsmiths.
Exceptional examples include the arresting twelfth
century bust reliquary of St Baudime from St
Nectaire in the Auvergne, which once contained a
vial of the saint’s blood and is shown for the first
time in Britain. Equally magnificent is the British
Museum’s bejewelled Holy Thorn reliquary (1390-97)
that still retains its sacred relic taken from the
Crown of Thorns, set amid an enameled
representation of the Last Judgement.

During the medieval
period, relics and reliquaries were used in a variety
of different ways, both to bolster dynastic prestige
and as small-scale personal symbols kept or worn in
reverence to the power of the saints. In medieval
Europe the political and the religious were
indivisibly linked and relics were often used to
serve a purpose far beyond that of private devotion;
a city’s importance could be measured by the number
or significance of relics held there. This is
exemplified by one of the exhibition’s prize pieces,
the splendid arm reliquary of St George, which has
been housed in the Treasury of St Mark’s in Venice
since the Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth
Crusade in 1204.

Treasures of Heaven will
look closely at both public and private forms of
relic veneration, focusing on the different ways
reliquaries were used and the impact this had on
their design. The objects on display will range from
small portable reliquaries in the form of jewelry,
such as a pendant reliquary housing a single holy
thorn, to large containers opulently adorned with
gems, silver and gold.

This exhibition will
also consider the role that saints’ relics and
shrines played at the centre of major sites of
Christian pilgrimage throughout Europe during the
medieval period. Particular attention will be paid
to two British saints and the cults associated with
them at Durham (St Cuthbert) and Canterbury (St
Thomas Becket). The lavish house-shaped shrine of St
Amandus from the Walters Art Museum will serve as a
valuable indication of the scale and appearance of a
typical saint’s shrine.

The exhibition will
close by examining anti-relic movements associated
with the northern European reformation of the
sixteenth century. It will also allude to the
continuing practice of relic veneration today,
exploring the spiritual relevance of relic
veneration in contemporary Christian worship.

Note: Treasures of Heaven has been organised with
the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore and the Cleveland
Museum of Art. Sponsored by John Studzinski in
association with William and Judith Bollinger,
Singapore, Betsy and Jack Ryan, Howard and Roberta
Ahmanson and The Hintze Family Charitable
Foundation.

Photo above: A reliquary
bust of an unknown female saint, probably a
companion of St Ursula. South Netherlandish, c.
1520–1530.

Editor's note: An
accompanying catalogue will be published by British
Museum Press: Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics
and devotion in medieval Europe edited by Martina
Bagnoli (The Walters Art Museum), Holger A. Klein
(Columbia University), C. Griffith Mann (The
Cleveland Museum of Art) and James Robinson (The
British Museum), paperback